Comic 705 - Lock Blue Up- Page 18

Author Notes:

It wasn't until I sat down to draw this page that I thought, "Huh. This is a lot of exposition for a character we'll actually never see again." I just wanted to do some world-building and display more directly that THIS is what happens to most criminals in this universe when they're convicted of a crime. They go to prison and don't leave.

I also kinda wanted to show that there are other "comics" running along this one; like there's Blue Blood Heroes and Wright As Rayne but this universe presumably has other heroes all with their own archnemesis, rivals, struggles, and arcs happening all the time all over the world. I like stories that can imply an entire continuity and history without really needing to show too much of it. Just let the reader fill in the gaps with what he already knows about the genre.

I also reallllly wanted to show off Protocol. She STILL wound up already appearing in pages 16 and 12 of this chapter, though neither of those were good looks at her. As you can tell she's a character that's gonna show up in person at one point and we wanted to set her up beforehand. This was just one of the adventures she's had.

I kinda tried to come up with a classic super-villain with Seraph; motif, kitchy civilian name, only has one person who could logically defeat him, a Dragon that fits into his motif (Paladin protects the angel).... I think that third panel was the climax of a multi-chapter arc Protocol went through. But again, the idea is that it doesn't end with him escaping to do it all again; he winds up buried in a prison graveyard with his brain removed.

Actually, the DID wind up really similar to Purple Man come to think of it, though for a spoiled manbaby Kilgrave had the intelligence to operate in secret rather than openly like this idiot.

Yeah, if you couldn't tell Protocol is someone who'll definitely be showing up down the line and that we have a lot in mind for. Big reasons she just suddenly gets so much set-up in this chapter are that it was a natural place for it and we only recently got around to actually designing her. Moreso the former since she was planned to put in an appearance here even before we did that.

I decided not to do the sepia thing here mostly just because it'd be watering down the visuals and be a case of Protocol for the third time being shoved into that instead of you just getting to see her directly. Though admittedly there was also a bit of laziness of not wanting to have to do the appropriate panels twice.

You know, it's probably super unsanitary that she just keeps that stuff in along with a pitcher she'll just happily chug straight out of that.